Roblox will make further changes to how its large audience of children interact with others on the platform, in response to growing safety fears.
The latest steps include a ban on users aged under 13 being able to access social hangout experiences in Roblox, beginning later this month. Additionally, though not until December, children will be blocked from seeing or playing experiences that have not been rated for their content.
Roblox says the change to kids being allowed into social hangout experiences will help “address user behaviour that can potentially pose a risk to our youngest users”.
In July, a Bloomberg report highlighted the 13,316 instances of child exploitation reported on Roblox in 2023 alone, and that two dozen people had been arrested for abusing minors following contact in Roblox. The following month, short-selling firm Hindenberg Research published further examples designed to highlight Roblox’s failure to keep children safe, in a report which labelled the platform as an “X-rated paedophile hellscape” rife with “grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech”.
Roblox responded to that report by calling it “simply misleading”, but last month announced plans to require parental permission for children under the age of 13 to access chat features by default. Kids under nine will also need permission to play experiences rated with a maturity rating of “moderate”.
Now, children will be further restricted from accessing social hangouts – which Roblox describes as “things like vibe games, clubs, socialising and supportive spaces where the primary theme or purpose of the experience is to communicate (e.g. in text or voice chat) with other users as yourself” – as well as in “free-form user creation” where users can draw in 2D or write without this text going through Roblox moderation.
From 3rd December, unrated experiences will become “unplayable, unsearchable, and undiscoverable by users under the age of 13”, Roblox wrote, though users will still be able to access them via a direct link.
For now, creators are being asked to rate experiences themselves, with enforcement beginning properly in 2025. In future, rating experiences will be “closely integrated” into the publishing process, Roblox said.
Last month, Roblox viral hit Dress to Impress removed a Halloween hotdog costume, after players began using it to cosplay as male genitalia.
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